She Brought the Enemy's Key

Mi Li, sitting on the control-room floor, pointed at a perfectly smooth curve. “The voice below says it's pretending to sleep.” Lu Yao magnified the record. Every minute, eight-tenths of a second was missing. In those gaps, pump pressure had already reached start level. “The machine isn't asleep. The data was erased.” Su bypassed monitoring and closed the mechanical contactor. Pumps dormant for three years roared alive. Molten salt flowed like golden blood, driving five retired generators past fifty megawatts. Outside troops rammed the gate. At minute fifty-seven, Qin injected a shutdown command; Su diverted it into an empty controller. At sixty minutes, the system bell sounded.